The art of circuit mounting is full of prior art disclosures and reductions to practice. Many of the prior art devices are a snap-in feature whereby the component is inserted into a printed wiring board hole and, by means of resilient plastic or the equivalent projections, the housing is snapped into place. The prior art is void, however, of a light emitting diode holder that can be assembled by robotic means and also installed on a printed wiring board by robotic means. The use of robots in manufacturing is a rapidly growing industry manufacturing technique because of equipment reliability and saving in the expense of human installers. While the prior art is full of insertion type patents, none disclose the use of a right angle light emitting diode assembly that can be installed on a printed wiring board and then processed by wave soldering apparatus to fixedly mount the component to the board, at the same time providing the necessary electrical connections to the board's printed wiring circuitry.
According to the present invention, a right angle light emitting diode assembly with snap-in feature is disclosed wherein an insulating body, generally in the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped, no larger than a finger nail, holds a light emitting diode in the insulating body at right angles to the surface of a printed wiring board, the insulating body being shaped such that robotic equipment can be used to insert the diode assembly cheaply and efficiently onto said board. The insulating body has front and back generally parallel surfaces, top and bottom generally parallel surfaces, and first and second generally parallel side surfaces, the respective surfaces having grooves and protuberances to allow the light emitting diode (LED) to be fixedly mounted in said body and the body to be inserted into a printed wiring board which can then be wave soldered without deleterious effects on the LED or supporting body. The bottom of the body has two oppositely faced snap-in protuberances which pass through the hole on a printed wiring board which deform inwardly slightly while passing through the hole and expand outwardly after extending out from beyond the hole to fixedly mount the diode assembly in the correct position on the board.